Commissioning strategies

This project will evaluate the commissioning strategies and impacts of Clinical Commissioning Groups. It will describe the various commissioning strategies employed by Clinical Commissioning Groups. It aims to assess their impact, using a number of performance measures. Initially, the project will describe the processes of establishing Clinical Commissioning Groups. It will identify the governance arrangements they have chosen, along with the types of management and organisational support used, as well as recording the actions they gave priority to initially. Then, the project will describe, classify and analyse the commissioning priorities and strategies adopted by Clinical Commissioning Groups in a range of local contexts.

The project will assess the impact of particular commissioning strategies on selected performance measures, taking into account local priorities and the effect of different local context.

Understanding primary care co-commissioning: Uptake, scope of activity and process of change

The final report presents the findings from a study following the development of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in England. This is the third phase of the project, which aims to understand the ways in which CCGs are responding to their new primary care co-commissioning responsibilities from April 2015. The study provides detailed evidence about the experiences of CCGs as they took on delegated responsibility for primary care commissioning.

The interim report presents early findings from the third phase of a longitudinal study following the development of CCGs since their inception in 2011. The over-arching aim of this phase of the project is to explore the significant changes to the work of CCGs as they took varying levels of new responsibility for commissioning primary care services from April 2015.

Exploring the GP ‘added value’ in commissioning: What works, in what circumstances, and how?

In this final report of the second phase of the project, we followed up the claims made about the potential added value that clinicians, specifically GPs, bring to the commissioning process (see interim report). We used Realist Evaluation (Pawson & Tilley, 1997) which involves; seeking out the participants 'programme theories' as to how a particular policy or programme will bring about the desired outcomes, exploring the extent to which these programme theories 'work' in the real world and examining in detail the mechanisms and contexts which underpin them.

Exploring the ongoing development and impact of Clinical Commissioning Groups

The over-arching aim of the second phase of this project is to explore the impacts of CCGs, with a particular focus upon the potential added value that clinicians bring to the commissioning process (in its widest sense), and to elucidate the contexts and factors that enable or inhibit the delivery of these benefits.

Exploring the early working of emerging Clinical Commissioning Groups: final report

This report presents the findings from a study of developing Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in England. The aim of the study was to explore the early experiences of emerging Clinical Commissioning Groups as they set themselves up as ‘Pathfinders’ and moved towards authorisation, investigating the factors that had affected their development and drawing out lessons for the future.